The evolution of lottery games has evolved from the original passive draw-type lottery to instant winning games and then on to pick three and pick four games and then to lotto jackpot type games. The passive draw-type game included a purchase of a prenumbered ticket. These tickets were generally sold in ascending numerical order and after a certain period of time a winning number of one of the tickets sold was selected and the prize was awarded to the holder of the ticket bearing the winning number.
Instant winning games were introduced in 1974 which generally included some kind of scratch-off game where a number or a certain number of items were matched according to a predetermined winning scheme.
Next, the pick your own number games were introduced which included the pick three game, the pick four game and the lotto jackpot game. In the pick three and pick four games, three or four numbers, respectively are chosen and must be matched in consecutive order with the winning number produced by the lottery operator.
The jackpot lotto game is played by picking generally six numbers of a selected set such as from 1 to 50. The six numbers may be selected by a computer or may be selected by the player and generally with the long odds of winning on the game, no particular order of numbers is required. The winning numbers are generally selected from a box containing ping pong balls numbered from 1 to 50, for example.
The players of these lottery games prefer the better odds of winning available from the pick three and pick four games, but on the other hand, the large jackpots are only available in the lotto games which have extremely long odds. The factors of the foregoing games have lead to a general decline in their popularity.
In view of the foregoing it can be seen that there is a need for a new lotto game which incorporates the "believe I can win feeling" of small odds games, added to the lottomania excitement of large jackpots.